Vaux.] 64 [March 7, 



" His devotion to duty was not lessened when it called for the risk of his 

 life and fortune, and the administration of the immense interests of the 

 Reading Railroad and Coal and Iron Companies was never influenced by 

 his personal advantages, but was always and solely in that of his stock- 

 holders. A man of firm convictions and of utter and unconcealed ab- 

 horrence of dishonesty in every form, he naturally made many enemies as 

 well as friends, but even his enmities were to his honor. 



" Mr. Gowen was a firm and very enthusiastic believer in the immense 

 value of our anthracite coal deposits, and he secured for the Reading 

 Coal and Iron Company the most valuable mineral estate in the world. 

 It is true much of it was purchased with bonds, and this involved an 

 interest account so heavy as to have crippled his companies ; but the 

 policy of controlling this magnificent source of future profits, both for the 

 coal company and for the railroad was, when exercised in moderation, a 

 far-sighted and wise one. Mr. Gowen's sanguine temperament may have 

 led him to a larger investment, in undeveloped lands, than was prudent, 

 but there is no question of the immense value of the estate (which covers 

 fully one -half of all the anthracite coal in Pennsylvania), that he pur- 

 chased for his company, or the moderate cost of the same. 



"In the council chamber he was an acute and profound legal adviser; at 

 the bar a pleader of unsurpassed logical force and magnetic influence. 

 Handsome, witty and eloquent, he was master alike of the rapier and the 

 battle ax. After the glamour of his speech had passed away, there 

 remained the convincing strength of his statement. 



"These qualities, together with his fearless determination, found, 

 perhaps, their highest exhibition in the victory which he won, at the end 

 of more than three years of patient preparation, over the secret society of 

 murderers which had so long maintained a reign of terror in the 

 anthracite regions. If Mr. Gowen had never achieved anything else, 

 this one performance would have entitled him to the gratitude of 

 mankind." 



Operating the coal mines that yielded profit to the railroad, employing 

 large numbers of laborers, supplying the demand for their products, it 

 came to pass that, by violations of law, life and property in the mining 

 localities were put in peril. Arson and murder were committed by mem- 

 bers of secret combinations of men in this coal region. Mr. Gowen undertook 

 the suppression of this combination and the punishment of the guilty. He 

 went before the legal authorities of Schuylkill county, indicted the leaders 

 of the " Molly Maguires," as this combination was called, convicted them, 

 and some were hanged and others imprisoned. The combination was 

 destroyed and peace followed. 



His ability as a lawyer could not be better tested. His personal cour- 

 age could not have been better proved. Fidelity to public duty and the 

 assertion of the obligation to society by one of its citizens have no nobler 

 attestation. 



Mr. Gowen's domestic life was hallowed by his unpretentious religious 



